Before Netcosa: New Servers and Three Overnight Weekends at a Memphis Nonprofit

Organization: A Memphis Nonprofit

Before starting Netcosa, Joe Pennel handled IT for a Memphis nonprofit while he was with a previous IT provider. It is nonprofit IT support in Memphis: server work, security work, and training, the same pieces that sit inside Netcosa’s managed IT services. Netcosa did not do this work. Joe did, and this page tells it from his account.

The organization’s IT ran on old infrastructure, including an Exchange 2003 server, and one staffer inside the organization was trying to do everything.

Challenge: Old Servers, One Overwhelmed Staffer, and Security on a Nonprofit Budget

Joe remembers the job as a massive amount of server work, because the infrastructure was old. He calls it awful. An Exchange 2003 server was part of it.

Inside the organization, one staffer was trying to do everything. She was overwhelmed. Joe says she was trying hard, and he had a lot of respect for her. The organization had no IT group to turn to beyond her.

Budgets added to the pressure. Joe says budgets are where security gets really tough for organizations like this: does the organization have the security in place? Without it, he says, an organization like this gets all kinds of problems.

Running a nonprofit on old servers and one overextended staffer? A free IT assessment shows where your servers and security stand today. Schedule your free assessment or call (901) 306-7575.

Response: New Servers, Server and Security Work, and Training

Joe spun up new servers and supported what the organization needed. He describes the work as standard IT support, weighted heavily toward servers and security. His account does not list tools, configurations, or the order he worked in, so this is a list of what he did, not a timeline:

• New servers. Joe spun up new servers for the organization and supported everything it needed.
• Server and security work. A lot of both.
• Three overnight weekends. Joe spent three weekends on site, working on its servers until about four or five in the morning, by his account. Then he went home and slept a couple of hours.
• Training the staffer. Joe filled the gap for the organization and trained her up until she was confident in what she was doing.

Joe says he watched her have aha moments along the way. When people tell him they don’t know anything about computers, he tells them to stop: they know more than they think, because they use computers every day. A couple of dots need connecting, and then it makes sense.

He says the work gave him more fuel for the long nights:

“It feels good helping those who help others and to empower them as well.”

— Joe Pennel, President, Netcosa

Outcome: New Servers, a Confident Staffer, and Three Long Weekends

• 3 overnight weekends: Joe worked on the organization’s servers until about 4 to 5 AM, by his account
• New servers in place: Joe spun them up and supported what the organization needed
• A confident staffer: by the time Joe left, he says she was doing the work with confidence

“She was crushing it.”

— Joe Pennel, President, Netcosa

Joe says the organization did not get ransomware during his time with it, though he adds that it was dealing with all kinds of other problems. That is his recollection, not a measured result. His account does not name a specific attack or tie the outcome to any one control, and we are not claiming it does.

We don’t have cost, response-time, user-count, server-count, or uptime numbers from this work, so we aren’t printing any. What Joe’s account does support is the shape of the job: old infrastructure, new servers, long overnight hours, and a staffer who grew into the work. That is the kind of server and security support Netcosa builds into its managed IT services and cybersecurity work today.

Running IT for a nonprofit with one overstretched staffer? Talk to Netcosa about your servers and security.

Related: Managed IT Services | Cybersecurity